composer; b. 7th May 1941 in Zakopane. He studied composition with Lucjan Kaszycki at the State Higher School of Music in Kraków.
He has gained recognition as a composer of popular, symphonic, theatre and film music as well as songs to poetic texts. Winner of awards in many Polish festivals, incl. the Festival of Student Song on Kraków (1964), the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole (1977) and the Opole Theatre Confrontations (1987, 1988, 1989). For different performers he has written c. 250 solo and choral songs to texts by Polish poets (Agnieszka Osiecka, Ewa Lipska, Józef Baran, Elżbieta Kuryło), as well as to German, Cuban, Spanish, French and Russian poetry. From 1966 he collaborated with Piwnica pod Baranami cabaret and Ewa Demarczyk, creating some of her her great hits: The Ballad of the Miraculous Birth of Bolesław III Wrymouth, Hercowicz the Violinist, The Gypsy and On the Bridge in Avignon. His songs were also performed by Beata Paluch, Anna Szałapak, Katarzyna Groniec, Katarzyna Jamróz, Hanna Banaszak, Beata Rybotycka and Janusz Radek.
He has also composed music for c. 200 theatre and TV spectacles, incl. When the Mind Does Not Sleep, Akhmatova, The Stormy Life of Lasik Roitschwantz, Green Goose, and I, Mary Magdalene. He has created soundtracks for films by Agnieszka Holland, Jan Machulski, Bogdan Hussakowski, Julian Dziedzina, Andrzej Rozhin and Wojciech Zeidler.
In 2015 he wrote music for the spectacle Music and Magic, commissioned by Kraków Opera as part of the "Collections – Composing Commissions" programme implemented by the Institute of Music and Dance.
In 1985-97 Andrzej Zarycki was the music director of the Groteska Puppet, Mask, and Actor Theatre in Kraków; in 1992-97 – of the Jan Kochanowski Drama Theatre in Opole. Since 1995 he has taught in the State Secondary Music School in Kraków. Since 2009 he has been the music director of the concert cycle “Enchanted Radio Kraków” presenting winners of the Marek Grechuta Enchanted Songs Festival for vocally talented disabled persons. For several years he has collaborated as a composer with Teatr Radwanek, a stage created by the intellectually disabled.
He has received numerous awards and distinctions, incl. the Badge of Merit to Polish Culture (1987), the Bronze Cross of Merit (1988), Badge of Merit to the Opole Region (1988), the City of Kraków Award for Community Work (1988). In 2004 he was granted the Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for his creative contributions to Polish culture, in 2005 the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, in 2006 – the Golden Laurel of Mastery in Art. For his charity work during the Marek Grechuta Enchanted Songs Festival he was presented with the "Friend of the Enchanted Bird" award (2007). For the golden jubilee of his artistic work in 2012, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage granted him the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.